Category: News

By Matt Wiley

Graduation ceremonies can be pretty similar to one another. The principal gives a welcome address, followed by either the salutatorian and valedictorian or vice-versa, before the graduating students cross the stage to collect their diplomas.

However, on June 3, during the graduation ceremony for New Tampa’s Paul R. Wharton High, something peculiar happened: the salutatorian’s microphone was turned off before the honoree had finished delivering his speech, and the reasons for doing so are still not completely clear.

Harold Shaw, Jr., a 17-year-old prospective University of Florida (UF) film student, approached the podium as Wharton’s salutatorian with a 7.31 GPA and began his speech. Before beginning, he removed his cap. The version of the speech that Shaw began to deliver to the crowd of classmates and their families inside the expo center at the Florida State Fairgrounds was the third draft he had been instructed to write and submit to the school for approval.

Continue reading

By Matt Wiley

The Tampa Police Department (TPD) and Pasco County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) are seeking the public’s help in identifying and locating a man believed to have information about a recent homicide in the New Tampa area.

According to a news release from TPD, around 3:30 on May 31, following an altercation in the parking lot of the McDonald’s in the New Tampa Center shopping plaza, the victim, 20-year-old Reggie Reshawn Adams, was chased by the suspect or suspects about 2.5 miles south along Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., where he was shot in his black Dodge Magnum near I-75.

Continue reading

One of the things I hear all too often these days — especially from people who have never advertised in the New Tampa or Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News — is that advertising in local print media “just doesn’t work anymore because of the internet.”

To all of those folks, all I can say is, “Yeah, right.”

First of all, I’m not naive. I know that more of our advertisers get far greater results from having business feature articles written about their businesses than they do from any ad in any print or online medium. Sadly, because of the number of advertisers we have (150-200 in every issue) and with a space limit of only four or five business profiles that can run in any issue, those features can only run in the print version of this publication once a year — although those article and issue archives also are always available at NTNeighborhoodNews.com.

Continue reading